Welcome to Melba Shed

We are a Men’s Shed located at Melba, North Belconnen in Canberra, Australia. Our purpose is to provide a place where older, mainly retired men can meet, socialise, undertake excursions, community activities and some healthy exercise activities. For more background information

Special Notices in Date Order (generally excludes items on our Program)

Your Experiences – We are keen to record members’ views about their Melba Shed experiences. If you can pen some words together it might provide some inspiration for others, especially for those who later in life may be looking for things to do or just for companionship. The concept of Men’s Sheds was about providing a focus for men to meet and share their experiences with others and to foster a degree of comradeship. Share your thoughts whether positive or not so positive This was Barry Howe’s offering in 2013You can send your words of wisdom by emailing them to Bob Salmond at melbashed@gmail.com

Protocol for introducing visitors to the Shed. The following protocol was agreed at committee meeting of 21 Jul 2015: Any member bringing a visitor to the Shed would host the visitor throughout the morning, and

Have the visitor record his attendance in the attendance register.

Provide the visitor with a temporary name tag.

Have the visitor and sponsors complete an application for membership (if applicable), and pass the application to the Secretary.

Introduce the visitor to the President, vice-President and Secretary if possible, and to other Shed members.

When a visitor attended the Shed without a formal host, other members would ensure that the above courtesies were conducted

10th July 2015 – President Laurie presented a $200 cheque donation to the Shed from Iris Hockley in memory of Clarrie and as thanks for the celebrations at the Shed after Clarries funeral

Jun 2015 – Shed Web Site Training – for prospective system admins & web editors for maintaining & running the Shed web site into the future. The dates these were held were Mondays 15th,, 22nd & 29th Jun. It concentrated on logging into WordPress on the web live & creating some pages & populating them with some text, pictures & sliders. If you still wish to be involved please advise Greg on email: actelan@gmail.com. We may have some further training in early Aug once attendees have done some more research, personal training & the school hols are over

10th Apr 2015 – Brian Wells is still seeking old spectacles, frames, cases etc to send overseas to disadvantaged recipients. Please bring any old spectacles, even damaged or broken ones to the Shed and Brian will take them off your hands

Member & Friends Information

Tabitha Foundation – Cambodia – History of Volunteers and HousebuildingBob Greeney’s daughter, Kate, a teacher at Harrison School, has raised funds to support the building of six new houses in Cambodia through the Tabitha Foundation. Here’s what Kate had to say: … I will be headed overseas in January to build houses in the poorest rural and remote villages of Cambodia. Our team will be undertaking this project through the Tabitha Foundation & we are aiming to build six houses while we are away. To do that we need to raise the money for each house we plan to build (one house is $1,700 AUD) – Kate Greeney, Executive Teacher – Yrs 5-10 Student Engagement, Harrison School, Wimerra Street, Harrison ACT 2914, Phone: 02 6142 2200

St John Ambulance’s, Project Resilience is continuing in 2015 & will again target active retirees, seniors & their families. This year they have two topics that will be repeated at different times over the year. These first aid information sessions are again free for active retirees, seniors and their families and will be run by St John ACT volunteers. Bookings can be made on 6282 2399. Dates & details in this flyer. We had our session on 24th Jul on CPR & using the defibrillator Pictures

Superb Parrots Bruce

2014 – Open letter from North Belconnen Day Centre – The Centre meets just across the way in the Church building. Any Melba Shed member is welcome to talk to Jeanette Branch on 6258 5784 at the North Belconnen Day Centre if they have friends, family or neighbours, men or women, who would benefit from the day centre activities or whose families/ carers would benefit from respite by those they care for accessing NBDC sessions (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, 10am-2pm)

General Items

Park Run around part of Lake Ginninderra. This group offers a 5Km free fun run around part of the Lake every Sat from 8AM. They meet at John Knight park. There are similar runs at Gungahlin and Tuggeranong

Free Annual Pass to National Parks in NSW for Pensioners & Seniors Card holders are entitled to a discount of approx 20% on the full price of an annual pass for a vehicle in their name. An NPWS Exemption Card is available for individuals who hold a valid Pensioner Card or Veterans on an Extreme Disability Allowance, Int Rate & Special Rate pensions

Prostmate – Doug Crawford provided this link to Prostmate. They provide online advice and support about prostate issues. To get support you need to sign up but its free. This then allows you to connect and talk to professional nurses about prostate problems. The site is provided by Australian Prostate Cancer Research. Urologist Professor Tony Costello at the Royal Melbourne Hospital is involved in this site and an associated Health Clinic for Men

3rd Oct 2014 – A member (Doug) advised us of his prostrate experienceswhere he used a urologist in Melbourne Tony Costello who uses the robotic method for prostate removal. He estimated with accommodation and travel costs to Melbourne his gross costs were around $18K and his net costs after rebates about $14-15K. Ouch! Still cheaper than $20K plus estimated by some other Advanced Care Planning – check out the information on how to plan for your future before you are unable to do so. Thanks to Jim Grenfell

LED Bulbs. Greg is using a Philips 12.5W 1055 lumen B22 direct replacement for old bayonet incandescent fittings. It’s nominally supposed to equal a 75W incandescent but he thinks the lighting is better. He bought one from Bunnings Fyshwick ACT $16 & another from Woolies Belconnen ACT for $17 both in mid to late 2014. They are not dimmable. He noticed lots of ES/screw fittings but only a few B22 bayonets fittings available There appears to be a range of 8 Philips globes from 4 to 14W. Interesting product guide. Alternative globes labelled A60 & A67 which are dimmable with the right Clipsal dimmer. They offer ES27/B22 connectors and have 12 or 17 watts and there is a price of around $40 for the 17W B22 version. See Dimmable Philips B22 17W LEDAldi recently sold dimmable LEDs 7/10/15Watt screw & bayonet globes for $9.95

Testing of Solar PV Inverters.ACTEWAGL is sending out notices to those who have had solar panels installed to have their installation & especially the Inverter checked & certified as safe. Greg Hutchison received one such note in Sept asking that his installation be checked by a certified installer within 60 days. Letter | FAQ & doc req’d | Appropriate list of certifiers. Note Greg used SolarHub based in Mitchell as the certifier. The test costs $154 incl GST

Items or Services for Sale

General Disclaimer. Melba Shed is not responsible for any commentary nor advice that may be included on this web site. Melba Shed does not endorse nor recommend any products nor services mentioned within the site. These are purely provided for information purposes